There is an old science fiction idea that there are universes
within universes. If you could make yourself small enough you
would be big in a sub-universe. If you could make yourself big
enough, you would be tiny in a super-universe. I guess it is
because the model of the atom superficially resembles a solar
system. But language does the same thing. If you want one person
to hear you, you can speak into a phone. I you want dozens of
people to hear you, you speak into a MEGAphone. If you want
thousands or millions to hear you, you speak into a MICROphone.
[-mrl]

When we were terrified of Soviet military power we really wanted
to get our hands on a Soviet MiG to find out how good it was.
Then a defector flew to the West in a MiG and we got one. We took
one look at the technology and asked, "This antiquated war plane
is what we thought was so scary? This is nothing." You have to
see the capabilities of your enemy in action before you know if
your worst fears are really justified. Frequently they are not.
We got some very good news along these lines this week. The fact
that nobody recognized it as good news just shows how we treat
news these days. Frequently people look at even the good news as
bad. I suppose the news can be interpreted as bad, but it really
has its good side. It is the kind of bad news that makes me heave
a sigh of relief.

For years we have been terrified of the shadow of Big Brother.
The government was getting and collecting more and more
information about us. The government, it was feared, had some
sort of hi-tech dossier on each of us. Privacy was a 20th Century
right, but not one in the 21st Century. In the new information
age the individual no longer had secrets from our government. Big
Brother sees all and knows all. Pretty scary, huh? One little
piece of suspicion about us and it's slam-bamm, hello, Uncle Sam.
Instantly the government knows more about us than we ourselves
know. (As Rick asks when seeing the German dossier on him in
CASABLANCA, "Are my eyes really brown?") But is that fear really
based on fact?

This week we found out just how powerful the interconnected
government databases really are. The US Immigration and
Naturalization Service, the INS, issued visa renewals for Mohammed
Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi. They have gotten the go-ahead to go to
a Florida flight school. Apparently the INS was missing just a
few facts about these two men. Their information does not include
the perhaps relevant fact that these two men took part in the
hijackings last September 11. They have posthumously been labeled
as (once) dangerous terrorists. The public so terrified that the
government has way too much information is now irate that that
government has so little information.

Didn't the government know these men were terrorists? Well, sure
they did. Some of the government did. The FBI knew. But the FBI
was not issuing the visas. It was probably some poor clerk at the
INS who had to decide on these visas. "They want to learn to fly
a plane? Flight lessons are not classified. Okay, let them
learn." That clerk probably sees hundreds of these applications
in a day of work. Probably there are simple criteria for deciding
if visas should be granted. Their visas were probably granted
more or less mechanically after a long wait in queue. If this
clerk at the INS had the information that these people were
terrorists of course those visas would not be granted. That
information was clearly not there. Why not? The infra-structure
was probably not in place to make getting information on
individual applicants a matter of course. Boy, was it not in
place!

Now people are up in arms. The White House has said that even
President George W Bush is "very displeased" that these people
were granted visas. How could the government not know these
people are terrorists? All these repressive interconnected
databases that people have found terrifying for years must not be
so interconnected after all and are probably not so very
repressive as was feared. They are not even interconnected to the
degree the public would consider to be the basic minimum for
national security.

What does this tell us? Nobody knew until this week how powerful
was the government's information systems capability. Now the
threatening governmental systems have been shown, like the Soviet
MiG, to be an over-rated threat. They are clunkers. The people
who were terrified of impending government data power are probably
misjudging just how powerful the government's data systems really
are. And the people annoyed the government does not have more
ready information about terrorists at their fingertips and about
possible security risks should realize that this level of security
would come at the cost of some of our own personal privacy. The
government clearly has taken a middle route on information sharing
that seems to please nobody. The information may be there, but
they are not the draconian and Orwellian super-systems that were
feared. The fantastic information systems are just that, fantasy.

I suppose I would like more security and more privacy. But I
recognize that I probably cannot have both. [-mrl]

CAPSULE: Not a remake. Not a sequel. The new film THE TIME
MACHINE is a comment and a play on the ideas of the 1960 film and
on the novel. The movie seems a little slight and rushed, but it
is not at all bad as a short science fiction story. Guy Pearce
was the wrong actor to cast as the Time Traveler, however.
Rating: 6 (0 to 10), high +1 (-4 to +4)

THE TIME MACHINE has already had one reasonably accurate film
adaptation. George Pal's 1960 version made some modifications of
the plot of the Wells story, but they were relatively small. The
film caught much of the spirit of the book. Any plans at this
point to remake THE TIME MACHINE would probably have been a
mistake. It would be tough to compete with happy memories of the
earlier version. Happily, though few critics seem to have noted
it, a remake is something that the new film THE TIME MACHINE is
not. It does not make any attempt to tell the same story. In
fact, there are references in the dialog to both the novel and the
George Pal film, indicating that it takes place in our world. It
is our world that the film assumes is destined to have a future
much along the lines that Wells predicted. This sort of thing is
not uncommon in written science fiction, but rare in a film. [In
fact I just recently read THE SPACE MACHINE by Christopher Priest,
which is not a sequel but plays with ideas from both THE TIME
MACHINE and WAR OF THE WORLDS.]

In this new film a late 19th century American scientist, Alexander
Hartdegen (played by Guy Pearce), suffers a great personal loss by
chance and devotes four years to inventing a machine that will
take him back in time to change the past. He only partially
succeeds. To his frustration he finds that he can change the past
only in minor ways. In frustration he decides to visit the
future. There he finds that future man has made a huge blunder
destroying civilization as we know it. Knocked unconscious as he
is escaping further into the future he overshoots his destination
and finds himself in 802,701 A.D. and as Wells predicted, humanity
has split into Eloi and Morlocks. This film inherits the ideas of
Wells legitimately. It is directed by Simon Wells, a great-grandson
of H. G. Wells and who prior to this film has directed
only animated films like BALTO and PRINCE OF EGYPT.

Guy Pearce, our Time Traveler, has been in some interesting films
including LA CONFIDENTIAL, MEMENTO, and THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO,
but he is not the most expressive actor. After a promising start
in which he plays the curious scientist to the hit, his face goes
impassive and he just does not convey much emotion to the viewer.
In the 1960 film the Time Traveler was played by Rod Taylor who
was much better at showing his emotions. Taylor's Time Traveler
was on an emotional quest: he had the passion to escape to a
better future free from war. After the promising start Pearce
plays his role as coldly intellectual and his quest is to answer a
technical question: why cannot he change the past? That is bound
to be less engaging to an audience. The viewer never really cares
a lot about what happens to him.

The film has several small tributes to its origins. In the Time
Traveler's house is a photo of H. G. Wells as a young man. If one
looks quick one can catch Alan Young, Philby in the 1960 film, as
a florist. The Time Traveler watches the mannequins change in a
store window as he moves through time much as he did in the 1960
film.

The real star of any visual version of THE TIME MACHINE has got to
be the title device itself. The machine has to be complex enough
that it looks like it might work but not too complex to be
assimilated by the eye or too threatening. An instant Hollywood
icon was the mechanism created for George Pal and the 1960 version
with its spinning dish and its antique chair. [Recommended is the
documentary on DVD of THE TIME MACHINE that tells how the 1960
film's machine was created.] This film obviously borrows from
that design. It replaces the one dish with three. Two dishes are
behind and above the cockpit, spinning in opposite directions. One
is in front and below. The dishes look like Fresnel lighthouse
lenses. The antique chair is there much as in the 1960 film as is
the control panel with the crystal lever. The new control panel
has a nice dial display on brass rods looking like something out
of a century old calculating machine. The one thing that looks a
little strange is some steam guages. Somehow I am not sure the
world is ready for a steam-powered time machine. ("I stopped the
machine at 205,356 AD and got out to stoke the boiler.") But the
machine has a sort of 1800s "steampunk" feel.

Then there are the inhabitants of the future. Wells described the
Eloi as fair-skinned. These Eloi are light brown as if all races
had blended to one color as well they might over 800 millennia.
The Morlocks when they attack come up right out of gravel pits,
grab victims and drag them down into gravel pits. It is a fairly
scary image borrowed from the 1956 horror film, THE MOLE PEOPLE.
I am not sure it made sense in that film and it makes even less
sense here. The implication is they are going to an underground
cavern, but how the Morlocks can get there without the gravel
spilling into the cavern I cannot imagine. The chief Morlock
(called an Uber-Morlock) is played by Jeremy Irons looking like
Elric of Melnibone.

I was prepared not to like THE TIME MACHINE and found that if one
is really interested in time travel stories, this new film is a
pleasant surprise. It does not try to replace the original THE
TIME MACHINE, it instead makes itself a companion piece. Add TIME
AFTER TIME and you have a really good science fiction triple
feature. I rate the new film 6 on the 0 to 10 scale and a high +1
on the -4 to +4 scale.

Open note to Roger Ebert (non-spoiler): You ask in your review why
the Time Machine stays in one place rather than at a particular
set of coordinates in space with the Earth flying away from under
it. I had puzzled that one myself, but years ago decided it makes
sense. The Time Machine is a physical device that creates a field
in which funny things happen with time. Like most matter we see,
it has been captured by Planet Earth and is carried with it. It
is not immovable, it just is not moved relative to the earth.
People do not move it because it moves through their time too fast
for them to see. But the pull of gravity is instantaneous and
binds it to the earth just the same way it binds us. In the 1960
film the machine even moves a little relative to the Earth when
the traveler hits the brakes too suddenly. Then the forward
movement in time gets dissipated into gyroscopic motion in three
dimensions. The machine spins around and topples to its side. A
plane moves forward in the sky, but it still maintains it momentum
and travels pretty much with the Earth. (And thanks, by the way,
for mentioning me on page 433 of your new book THE GREAT MOVIES.)
[-mrl]

I've been trying to think of a catchy, interesting way to start
this review, but I can't. The best I can do is paraphrase
something my wife said: Robert J. Sawyer is committing trilogy.

Okay, okay. Not fair. Everybody is doing trilogies these days.
Brin did it, Card is overdoing it, Anderson and Herbert might end
up doing three trilogies. Why not Rob Sawyer? Why not indeed,
especially since he wrote a trilogy many years ago, but seems to
have given up the habit since then. I've said all along that one
of the things that I've liked about Sawyer's books were that they
were relatively short and self-contained. The last thing I ever
expected from him these days was a trilogy.

So, it was with much interest that I started HOMINIDS (originally
called INFINITE FACULTIES before his publisher requested a
change) - I really wanted to see if he could do it well. If
HOMINIDS is any indication, he will do it very well.

The story starts out in two locations, er, well, no, that's not
true. It's one location in two different universes, one of which
is ours. In our universe, the setting is the Sudbury Neutrino
Observatory, where the usual neutrino detection experiments were
going on deep underground. In the other universe, a quantum
computing experiment was going on in the exact same location. The
experimenters in that universe were attempt to factor a very large
number. (I won't go into the quantum physics explanation here -
that is an exercise best left to the reader.) But the number is
too large, and a hole opens up between the two universes,
transporting Ponter Boddit from the other universe to ours.

The real issue is that Ponter Boddit is a Neanderthal. In his
universe, Homo Sapiens did not survive, much like Neanderthals
didn't survive in our world.

The novel, then, explores events on two fronts. In our universe,
we follow the things happening in Ponter's life, the people around
him, and the effect that a Neanderthal has in our little corner of
the universe in which there aren't supposed to be any
Neanderthals. In Ponter's universe, we follow the happenings that
are going on with his loved ones, including an attempt to accuse
his colleague and man-mate (Neanderthals in Ponter's world have
both man and woman mates) of murdering him.

As usual with most Sawyer novels, there are quite a few ideas
being thrown around, although I daresay not as many as in
FACTORING HUMANITY, for example. Quantum physics and religion,
just to name two, play an important role in this story, and there
is an abundance of ideas that is tossed around. One intriguing
idea is that of the "companion," a device that is implanted into
the wrist of Neanderthals very early in their lives. Among other
things, it records everything its wearer does and sends it to the
alibi archive, thus effectively eliminating crime. Another is
that of sterilizing a criminal and anyone related to him/her that
has at least 50% of his/her genetic material, thus cleansing the
gene pool.

But one thing that is outstanding in this novel is Sawyer's
exploration of interpersonal relationships, both here in our
universe and over in Ponter's universe as well. There are some
very complex issues being dealt with in this novel, and Sawyer
does it extremely well.

And you know, for the first book of a trilogy, it stands on its
own pretty darn well, but you know there's more to follow. But
that's okay too. If the next two books are written as well as
this one was, the whole trilogy will be a keeper. I'm certainly
looking forward to the next two. [-jak]

[This originally appeared in the 28 Sep 2001 issue of THE MT VOID,
but is being reprinted now that MONSOON WEDDING is getting a major
release in the United States.]

CAPSULE: The Verma family is having a wedding and all the
relatives will come for the multi-day festivities. Mira Nair's
film is pleasant enough with a little human drama, a few family
secrets, some sadness and some happiness. You have seen it all
before, but perhaps not from India. The photography is colorful
and the music is very agreeable. Rating: 7 (0 to 10), low +2 (-4
to +4)

Mira Nair previously directed SALAAM BOMBAY and MISSISSIPPI
MASALA. Her newest film, written by Sabrina Dhawan, is very
similar to previous films like BETSY'S WEDDING but it is set in
New Delhi. A wealthy family is having a wedding. An Indian
wedding is a multi-day affair as much a family reunion as a
nuptial. Even more than in the US, it is an excuse for a lavish
and extravagant family get-together. The film shows us what the
family does together and at the same time follows several family
members' individual story lines. Aditi Verma is marrying Hemant,
an Indian engineer working in the US. She had previously had a
relationship with Vikram, her supervisor. Latit, her father
(played by Naseeruddin Shah), is juggling many problems, not the
least of which is worrying about the caterer has hired PK Dubey.
Dubey is a rather eccentric man with a taste for eating the
marigolds he uses for decoration. Even Dubey will soon be
romantically entangled when he becomes interested in Alice, one of
the family servants. Several family members arrive giving rise to
several plotlines involving sex, family secrets, or both. There
are heartbreaks and there are people falling in love. Some of the
subjects covered are probably near taboo for Indian films.

Western audiences will appreciate a look at unfamiliar Indian
customs like women painting their hands with henna. On the other
hand it was not clear (to me at least) if scenes like the family
singing together are typical of Indian culture or if they are a
convention of Indian musical films. This seems a particularly
Westernized family with the father wearing American designer
sweaters and the family speaking mostly English. The latter will,
however, help with an international release.

Sabrina Dhawan's screenplay is vibrant with witty dialog. We have
seen films with plotting very much like this, but the Indian
setting makes a great deal of difference. Director Mira Nair
calls the film an affirmation of life. I rate it a 7 on the 0 to
10 scale and a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl]